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New Player Help Page
New Player Guide Welcome to the New Player Guide, where we hope to provide you with the knowledge you need to make reasonable decisions in Pirates of the Burning Sea. Hopefully soon we'll be able to provide you with ample information on various parts of the game, but for now we'll stick to the subject of ships. Ships There are three different types of ships in PotBS: Scouts, Warships, and Merchants Scouts: Scout ships tend to be fairly agile, capable of making quick turns and boasting a high acceleration value. Compared to some merchant ships and many warships, scout ships tend to have less armor and firepower, lending them to more hit-and-run or kiting tactics. Most scout ships sail best at either 90 or 135 degrees (Beam and Broad Reach, respectively). Warships: Warships tend to have some of the highest armor and firepower values in the game, capable of dishing out just as much damage as they can take, if not more. Compared to scout ships, warships are extremely sluggish when it comes to handling, accelerating and turning slowly. Most warships sail best at either 135 or 180 degrees (Broad Reach or Running, respectively). Merchants: Merchant ships seem to be a mish-mash of both scouts and warships. The main aspect of merchant ships are usually their expanded cargo holds. However, they often enough sacrifice armor, firepower, or both in order to compensate for it. In the end, merchant ships come in a myriad of styles, from scout-like sloops to warship-like frigates. While typically sub-par in terms of combat, there are a few notable merchant ships that stand up well on their own. Ship Stats Now that we've made it past what types of ships are what, we'll be moving on to other important information you should know when sailing. At first glance, a ship's stats page can be very confusing, so we've decided to break it down and explain the important parts to you. Recommended Ships When you first start playing PotBS, you may be overwhelmed initially by the many choices of ships available to you. Be aware that not all ships are built equally and that a number of them should be avoided at all costs. So to help you out, we're also providing a number of suggested ships you can sail at many levels, along with tips to go along with them to help you out. Keep in mind, this list isn't the be-all end-all of what ships you should or shouldn't use, and that it's been assembled more for PvE than PvP. Avcom Avcom, or "avatar combat" is swasbuckling, or swordfighting. Like ships, there is much to it and at first it can be a bit overwhelming, even to the point that you end up slapping on whatever avatar modifiers in your inventory that are of the highest level. Hopeflly this guid will allow you to understand avcom a little better and be able to make reasonable choices in fighting style and outfitting. Fighting Schools In the game there are four different fighting schools you can chose from, each with their own costs and benefits. They are as follows: Dirty Fighting: Arguably one of the most powerful fighting schools, dirty fighting, or "DF", is mainly about striking down your opponent before they strike you. DF is capable of dishing out large amounts of damage, at the cost of initiative and accuracy. Because of the huge impact DF skills have on initiative, it is not exactly designed to withstand a long battle, but as with all fighting styles there is an initiative regeneration skill that helps with that considerably. Doubled with some defensive buffs and you have a very capable fighting style Fencing: Formerly one of the least popular, since the avcom patch, fencing has become quite popular. It is mainly about defence, rather than offence, although it can deal out some critical hits from time to time. Fencing features a number of link attacks that disable and debuff your enemy, and has the defensive (dodge, parry, damage resistance) buffs to back them up. Fencing is basically designed to stop you from taking any direct health damage for as long as possible, rather than the health regeneration skill featured in each of the other fighting skills, fencing has a guard regeneration skill. Outfitted and used correctly, however, you can go through battle without taking any health damage. Florentine: Florentine is the art of the double blade. It is an in-between of DF and Fencing, but that does not mean at all that it is the best. Featuring decent attack and defensive rates, florentine is a good all-around school, and does not have a clear strength or weakness. This renders it a liability, it can be good seeing as there is no set way to win against it, but also not so good because there is no sure way defeat your opponent with it. Generally when outfitting you need to either focus on your defense and go with a more fencing style of fighting, or focus on your offense and adopt a more DF style of fighting. Florentine is very flexible, so it is easy to modify and test with, making it very reliable. Brawling: A fairly new fighting school, brawling does not use a sword. Brawling introduces a new debuff to avcom, the bruise. From bruising, you can inflict bleed on your enemy with a number of link skills, which is very useful for hitting the enemie's health directly, rather than getting down their guard first. Brawling is, however, somewhat like florentine. There is no really strong suit or weak link. While it is not in any way easy to defeat a well-equiped brawler, the path you take in brawling can vary greatly. One of the most famous builds for brawling - the drunk build- was taken down a notch in the avcom patch, and hardly does the damage it used to, which slightly hampers it's offensive stats compared to that of florentine or DF, but the balanced build (the defensive build) was also buffed, considerably making up for the loss. All in all brawling is very useful, and takes some practice to master, but always proves worth it in the end. Character Stats In the picture above is the most important stats to know about; the stats that appear on your health bar. Health Health is your basic abaility to take take damage and keep on surviving. Obviously when your health reaches zero you are defeated and can either revive (if you are allowed depending on what your situation is) or give up/leave. Of course seeing as the most health you can get is around the 333-410 range, you would die very quick in battle if that was the only thing keeping you from getting killed off, so there is much more to it than that. Guard Generally before you take any health damage, your opponent needs to get rid of your guard. If you have gaurd and you take damage, it will be subtracted from your guard rather than your health. Only when your guard is gone will you begin to take health damage. If you are trying to tank yourself out, it would be wise to take advantage of guard, and try to outfit to buff your guard regerneration, and damage resistance (mostly the later). But, of course, there are a number of skills that either debuff your guard, or simply directly hit your health and bypass your guard, such as bleed skills, so be aware of that. Initiative Initiative is your ability to attack. Almost all attacks have an initiative price. So long as you have the initiative to support your attacks, you can use them. Generally the greater the attack, the more initiative it takes. Usually this goes fast in drawn-out battles, so each fighting school has an initiative regeneration skill (that luckily for you does not cost any initiative) that dramatically boosts your initiative for a short time. It is essential to have a constant flow of inititative, so take note of your initiative regeneration stats. A little bit of initiative can be the difference between life and death in close battles. Economy The economy is a very large part of the game that can be extremely overwhelming to new players. The trick to succeeding in the economy is to know what you're doing and to keep at it. If you utilize the economy properly it can offer you large amounts of money for minimal work. The Shop Every port in the game contains a shop, the shop is the most vital part of the economy and is used by every player in the game. In most shops there is a Fence (He is called a Junk Merchant in national ports.) and an Auctioneer. The Fences can buy and sell good but they aren't a major part of the economy, though they are the best way to sell off loot obtained by fleeting. The Auctioneer on the other hand is the most important part of the economy. The Auctioneer provides acces to the Auction Hall (abbreviated AH) which is used to sell your goods and buy other goods. Auction Halls are regional meaning they will only show listings in you region, for example the Cat Island will only show good listed in the Bahamas. To buy an item you must first find it in the Auction Hall which is quite simple. The basic function is similar to Google, first you narrow your search using the drop down boxes, then you type the name of the item you want in the search box and press enter. You do not necesarrily have to type the items name in the search bar but it wil help decrease the extra items that appear in your search. If you can not find the item you are looking for in the AH it may be a good idea to widen your search to include more ports or try searching in a different region.